By Press Trust of India (PTI) BEIJING (IDN) — China, which was the first to be hit by COVID-19 and the earliest to recover from the lockdown effects, has fixed a GDP (Gross Domestic Product) target of over 6% in 2021, optimistic of an economic recovery after last year’s 2.3% growth, its weakest in decades. […]
Gorbachev’s Legacy After 30 Years of the Soviet Union’s Disintegration
By Andrei Grachev A Russian historian, political analyst and journalist, Dr Andrei Grachev, was the adviser for Mikhail Gorbachev and official Spokesman of the President of the USSR until his resignation in December 1991. InDepthNews is re-publishing this article courtesy of Other News. Original link > https://www.other-news.info/2021/03/the-time-of-gorbachev MOSCOW (IDN) — Two books were published practically […]
Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons: The Role of Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands
Viewpoint by Moritz Kütt, Jan Hoekema and Tom Sauer * The English version of this article was first published in The Toda Peace Institute‘s Global Outlook on February 28, 2021.** TOKYO (IDN) — On January 22, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons entered into force. The new agreement also called the Nuclear Ban […]
Reinvigorate Multilateralism by Replacing its Operating Principle
Viewpoint by Inge Kaul* The following article first appeared on the website of Center for Global Development and was adapted from a paper published originally by Global Perspectives and cross-published by CGD. BERLIN (IDN | CGD) — The global policy debate on multilateralism has taken an intriguing turn during recent months and its focus has […]
India Driving Toward ‘Authoritarianism’ — Media Being Gagged
The following is a revised version of the previous report titled “India Falls from ‘Free’ to ‘Partly Free’ in Freedom Index” By Ditsa Bhattacharya, NewsClick and ICF Team NEW DELHI (IDN) — India’s status fell from “free” to “partly free” in the Freedom in the World 2021 report released on March 3. India’s score in […]
Texas’ Sustainable Energy Initiatives Under Fire Amid the Latest Grid Failures
By J W Jackie RENO, Nevada, USA (IDN) — The recent energy failure in Texas left 4 million Texans without power and almost half the state under a boil water advisory. As below-freezing temperatures and an intense winter storm swept the state, the state’s energy grid—at the worse possible time. Clean energy is poised to […]
India’s Farmers’ Protests Threaten to Overturn the Political Landscape
Viewpoint by Vijay Prashad* NORTHAMPTON, Massachusetts (IDN) — For the past three months, Indian farmers and agricultural workers have been in the middle of a difficult struggle against the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Tens of thousands of them have gathered around the capital city of New Delhi; they say that they will not […]
Humanitarian Situation Getting from Bad to Worse in the Horn
By S. Gianesello BRUSSELS (IDN | EEPA) — As the UN Security Council prepared to meet on March 4 to talk over the humanitarian situation in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, the situation in the Horn of Africa was getting from bad to worse with reports of ethnic targeting and cleansing. The meeting was requested […]
Biden Should Stop Military Activism and Start Thinking
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden (IDN) — “Diplomacy is back”, President Joe Biden said recently. But then in the middle of a delicate diplomatic dance with Iran he goes and bombs a small, politically inconsequential, Iranian surrogate in Syria, in retaliation for the killing of one American soldier. This seems to go against everything […]
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Leads A New Era for the WTO
Viewpoint by Yvonne Bartmann* This article first appeared on International Politics and Society, an e-Journal published by Germany’s Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s office in Brussels. GENEVA (IDN) — When problems proliferate, expectations tend to be high. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is facing many problems, indeed a whole raft of them. Accordingly, there’s a lot of pressure on […]